--- title: About Mickey Baines description: Mickey Baines is a former higher education practitioner who helps leaders see the transformation behind CRM and AI, and plan the path from here to there. --- [Mickey Baines](https://www.mickeybaines.com/?hsLang=en) [The Book](https://www.mickeybaines.com/book?hsLang=en)[Writing](https://www.mickeybaines.com/writing?hsLang=en)[Podcast](https://www.mickeybaines.com/#podcast)[Speaking & Consulting](https://www.mickeybaines.com/speaking-consulting?hsLang=en)[About](https://www.mickeybaines.com/about?hsLang=en) ![Mickey with his family and their golden retriever, piled together for a selfie](https://www.mickeybaines.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Website%20Images%20and%20Graphics%20(Plum%20Site)/mickey-family-selfie.webp?width=1200&height=900&name=mickey-family-selfie.webp) Saskatchewan, just north of the North Dakota border, circa 2023 # Hi, I’m Mickey. I’m a consultant and a former practitioner. I’ve spent my career designing and leading transformations at colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada, and now I share how they’re done. That work has always come with a lens on top of it, first CRM and now AI. Part of what I do is help leaders take that lens off, so they can see the transformation for what it really is. On the road ## No road we take is straight Most summers, our family lives out of an RV for weeks at a time while I keep working from the road. On average I work about half the week. A typical travel day starts with an hour or two on client deliverables and email before anyone else is up. I take two or three hours of client calls while we’re driving down the road, then check back in once we’ve parked and set up for the night. On longer stays, the calls move to the table in the RV or a chair under the awning, and some days belong entirely to hiking. We’ve taken the kids to the beach and to Disney World, and those trips are mostly about watching them enjoy something we planned for them. The RV summers have given us firsts we share. We’ve hurried back up a narrow trail to get out of the way of a grizzly, felt our lungs fight for air near 14,000 feet in Rocky Mountain National Park, walked behind the falls at Niagara and stood at the edge of a lake so turquoise it looked like the Caribbean. Those are the moments I’ll always treasure. Where we started ![Moraine Lake, bright turquoise below the Valley of the Ten Peaks, framed by tall evergreens](https://www.mickeybaines.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Website%20Images%20and%20Graphics%20(Plum%20Site)/rv-2023-moraine-lake.webp?width=1200&height=800&name=rv-2023-moraine-lake.webp) 2023 ### Banff, Jasper and Glacier National Park Setting milestones kept us focused and moving. In Glacier we took on a nine-mile hike with a lot of elevation. On a hike that long, there are stretches where you’re tired and worn down, and stopping, quitting and turning around starts to sound reasonable. That’s an easy compromise to make. Long implementations work the same way. After weeks, often months, on a project, people get tired, and a tired brain wants shortcuts that end the exhaustion. It’s the body’s instinct to protect itself. Those shortcuts are the decisions that can kill a project, or the outcome it was meant to deliver. Along the way we learned that the turquoise in Lake Louise comes from rock flour, the fine silt glaciers grind out of the mountains, and that the parks in Canada leave fallen trees where they land. Somewhere between hikes, it also struck me that a hot shower has only been part of everyday life for about a hundred years. ![Mickey in sunglasses, finger to his lips, beside the family RV parked in an empty campus lot](https://www.mickeybaines.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Website%20Images%20and%20Graphics%20(Plum%20Site)/rv-2024-college-tour.webp?width=1000&height=1250&name=rv-2024-college-tour.webp) 2024 ### The college tour Institutions need to understand themselves at a much deeper level. We visited 24 campuses, and at each one we tried to go unnoticed while parking a 43-foot RV in a campus parking lot for the tour. Only once were we recognized. I documented all of it on LinkedIn. The language on the tours, in the print pieces and in the emails was strikingly similar from one school to the next. It was so similar that our daughter, who was 11 at the time, started reciting the guides’ lines along with them. ![A moose walking through golden sagebrush below the snow-streaked Tetons](https://www.mickeybaines.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Website%20Images%20and%20Graphics%20(Plum%20Site)/rv-2025-tetons.webp?width=1200&height=800&name=rv-2025-tetons.webp) 2025 ### Yellowstone, the Tetons and Rocky Mountain National Park You need the map and the itinerary together. Driving up and around Rocky Mountain National Park, and up and over the Tetons between Idaho and Wyoming, you’re on windy roads where you often can’t see around the corner. ![Mickey’s daughter riding a wave on a surfboard at the Delaware shore](https://www.mickeybaines.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Website%20Images%20and%20Graphics%20(Plum%20Site)/rv-2026-delaware-surf.webp?width=1206&height=661&name=rv-2026-delaware-surf.webp) 2026 ### Aruba, then two weeks at the Delaware shore This was the summer the reality set in that our son was no longer a child. He would soon be moving away from home. The weeks at the shore were slower and less scheduled, which left room to think about how much fun we’ve had over the years and about what comes next. When we got home, it hit me hard, and I was sad for a good while. I was excited for the next step in his journey, and I also hated the thought of him leaving. 2027 ### Next up: the California coast to the Redwoods, then Oregon For the first time, I’ll drive out solo. I’ll have nine days on the road by myself before the family flies out to meet me in San Diego. We picked California because our daughter asked to go. I’m looking forward to Yosemite and the Redwoods, to watching her soak up the beach in Malibu, and to a couple of days in Napa with my spouse. Our son may join us, depending on whether he lands an internship. Right now ## What I’m working on and reading Updated November 2026 ### Working on - Finishing *From Here to There* - A study of the art of success through people who pushed themselves, and everyone around them, to a higher level: Jerry, Jeff, Jordan and Jobs - A look at football, for fans of the game and for anyone who wants to understand the difference between performing at the highest level of your work and staying an amateur. The gap in effort can look small and subtle, but the gap in outcomes is significant. ### Reading - *What to Make of a Life*, Jim Collins - Up next: *Vibe*, Adam Grant The longer version ## How I got here I spent twelve and a half years working in higher education, just over nine of them at Albright College, where by the time I left I was leading the accelerated programs for nontraditional students. Those programs hit every measure of success we set, year after year, and that run is where the name for my first company came from. I started that consulting practice, Fourth Dimension Partners, grew it, and merged it into Kennedy & Company. There I grew the technology work into the firm’s largest practice and moved into the role of president and CRO. When Kennedy & Company merged with Human Capital, I took on building our AI strategy work and leading other new services to market. ![Mickey talking with a small group at an evening reception](https://www.mickeybaines.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Website%20Images%20and%20Graphics%20(Plum%20Site)/mickey-reception-group.webp?width=1200&height=800&name=mickey-reception-group.webp) Mickey Baines © 2026 Mickey Baines · [Privacy](https://www.mickeybaines.com/privacy?hsLang=en)